The present invention relates to a terminal apparatus for downloading a map.
As a car-mounted equipment, there is a navigation apparatus in which a map data is stored in a storage medium such as CD-ROM, and read, upon required, by driving the storage medium with a disk driver to retrieve a guidance path.
Alternatively, there is a known navigation method. In the known navigation method, a place of departure and a destination are transmitted from a car-mounted server to an information center. The information center retrieves a guidance path from the place of departure to the destination to transmit guidance path data and map data for displaying the guidance path to the car-mounted server. The car-mounted server inputs the guidance path data and the map data into a navigation device. The navigation device conducts path guidance, employing the guidance path data and the map data.
A document regarding a car navigation terminal apparatus and navigation method of this type is JP-A-2000-55682 specification or the like, for example.
However, in the above-described car navigation apparatus, there is a problem that it is expensive because the storage medium such as CD-ROM for storing the map data and the driver are equipped with the car navigation apparatus itself. In the above-described navigation method, the storage medium and the driver are not needed and therefore, a low cost can be achieved. There is, however, a problem that telecommunication time becomes longer and telecommunication fee becomes higher, because it is required to download the guidance path data and the map data from the information center every time of telecommunication.